Digital Equipment Demonstrates Chip Packaging

The Digital Equipment Corporation demonstrated technical breakthroughs today that it said would allow the packaging of multiple computer chips at densities up to 30 times greater than is possible with current printed circuit board technology. Higher densities reduce the time a signal takes to travel between chips.

''We've created the first generation of a new computer design technology that can evolve into the next century,'' Robert M. Glorioso, Digital's vice president, high performance sytems, said at a news conference. ''These developments will be implemented in our upcoming VAX mainframe computer and will provide Digital customers a technology that will result in price/performance and reliability benefits over a wide range of future distributed computing products.''

As the performance of individual semiconductors has increased, the packaging of multiple chips on printed circuit boards has become a main limiting factor in computer system performance because of the connections required and the heat they generate. Digital's new technology addresses both issues, packing the equivalent of four very large boards in a five-inch square that is air-cooled. More costly liquid cooling is standard for large computers.

''Basically, we've dramatically shortened the distance a signal must travel between chips, which means we can do much more computing work in a shorter time in a smaller space,'' Mr. Glorioso said. ''We're talking about distances comparable to the width of a hair and time measured in trillionths of a second.''

If applied to current Digital machines, the new technology will account for at least a twofold increase in performance, the company said. But Mr. Glorioso said it would provide far more than that in the company's planned new mainframe.

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Digital's new technology should make that machine very competitive with machines from the International Business Machines Corporation and other mainframe manufacturers, said Omri Serlin, president of Itom International, a computer consulting firm based in Los Altos, Calif.

''It's clear from the numbers they are talking about today, that the machine will be squarely in the 3090 class,'' he said, referring to I.B.M.'s largest mainframe machine.

The announcement also signals Digital's long-term commitment to producing computers from the ground up at a time when many companies are looking to outside, often foreign, vendors for critical technology, Mr. Serlin said.

''It gives them a lot more credibility,'' he said, adding that Digital has ''taken the tough road rather than the easier one.''

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A version of this article appears in print on September 26, 1989, on Page D00006 of the National edition with the headline: Digital Equipment Demonstrates Chip Packaging. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe